


Haven’t I Seen You Someplace Before?

by cirnelle



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, M/M, Spoilers for FBaWtFT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-13 20:51:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9141703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cirnelle/pseuds/cirnelle
Summary: Newt swallowed hard. It justfiguredthat on his first evening in New York, he’d find a man who looked like he’d stepped right off the centerfold ofWitch Weekly, then promptly spill the man’s drink all over him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Set just after Newt arrives in New York. (Warning for spoilers for the first half hour or so of the movie.)
> 
> Canon AU in that I’ve messed with the timeframe a little, but the most major difference is that here, Percival gets kidnapped/swapped only sometime _after_ he meets Newt in the movie.

 

 

Newt Scamander took a deep breath of fresh air as he stepped off the gangplank of the steamship and finally set foot on New York soil. The transatlantic journey had taken almost a week, and he was a little tired.

He cast his case a nervous glance as he lined up to go through customs. Some of his creatures had gotten rather tired of being cooped up in his case for the last few days of the journey, and had tried repeatedly to open his case despite Newt’s assurances that they would be in New York soon. He looked down at his case for the twentieth time just as one latch flicked open and a Niffler paw stuck itself out of the gap, cautiously groping around the top of the case. Newt smacked it. There was a small squeak, and the paw, exuding a contrite air, withdrew into the case.

Much to Newt’s surprise, he actually managed to make it through customs without incident. The next order of business, he decided, stepping onto the street outside the port, was to find a hotel and grab a quick meal. He was looking forward to a good night’s sleep on firm ground for the first time in a week – Newt may have been a seasoned traveler, but he was much more used to travelling by magical means and hadn’t really enjoyed the constant swaying of the Muggle steamship.

He randomly picked a direction and started walking, and was actually lucky enough to find a small hotel just two blocks from the port. He took one of the last two available rooms, then, case in hand, set out to find some dinner.

After wandering around for a little while, a plain brown door, adorned only with a large brass knocker, down a small flight of stairs just off the main street caught his eye. From the number of people coming and going, the place seemed fairly popular, but not overly so. Newt mentally shrugged to himself, descended the flight of stairs and pushed the door open.

The place was larger than he’d expected, a long, carpeted room dimly lit by gently flickering rows of lamps all down each wall. Stretching almost entirely down the length of one wall was an oak bar, the seats almost all full; opposite it sat plush sofas upholstered in deep red velvet, also almost entirely occupied, low tables interspersed between them. There was a fireplace at the far end of the room, in which a fire was roaring merrily. Floor-to-ceiling latticed windows behind the bar, the frames inlaid with gold, lent a touch of opulence to the room.

He picked his way carefully through the crowd and managed to find a single empty seat at the bar, where he had a quick dinner. As he was getting up to leave, he bumped into an elegantly-dressed man who was standing next to him at the bar holding a glass of firewhisky, spilling the drink all down the front of the man’s shirt and tie, and part of his coat.

“I’m so sorry!” Newt gasped in dismay.

The stranger, who was glaring down at his soaked shirt, looked up at Newt then, and his scowl softened at the obvious distress on Newt’s face.

“Don’t worry about it,” he told Newt, lifting one shoulder in a slight shrug. “It happens.”

Newt swallowed hard. The man he’d bumped into was _gorgeous_ ; tall and lean, his dark hair cropped short, with just a touch of silver at the temples. He had a nice voice too, deep and velvety. It just _figured_ that on his first evening in New York, he’d find a man who looked like he’d stepped right off the centerfold of _Witch Weekly_ , then promptly spill the man’s drink all over him.

“Let me buy you a drink?” he said tentatively, gesturing awkwardly at the man’s shirt, “to, um, replace the one I spilled on you?”

“That’s not necessary,” replied the stranger, tipping his head slightly to one side and studying Newt curiously. “However, I’d be very pleased if you’d be willing to join me for a drink.”

“Oh! Um,” said Newt, flushing. “I’d like that.”

Mr. Gorgeous, whose name turned out to be Percival, found them two seats at the bar and bought the first round of drinks, despite Newt’s protests that he really should pay for Percival’s drink. Newt tentatively told a few stories of his travels, and was pleasantly surprised when Percival not only seemed genuinely interested, but also had apparently been to quite a few of the places Newt had mentioned. It seemed he traveled quite extensively for work, although he didn’t go into the specifics of what his job was.

As they were talking, Newt noticed that Percival seemed to be a little uncomfortable in his still-wet shirt, occasionally adjusting his collar or his shirt so the fabric wouldn’t stick to his skin. A short while later, he tugged at the knot of his tie, loosening it; the top two buttons of his shirt were open, revealing just a sliver of broad chest. Newt actually felt his mouth _water_. Between his own shy nature and travelling to odd and remote parts of the world for his work, he’d not found time for...leisure activities in a long time, and certainly not with men who looked like _this_.

“If you’d like to dry off a little,” he ventured boldly, feeling himself blushing fiercely but persevering nevertheless, “I have a room nearby.”

Percival smiled then, a warm smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling attractively. “I don’t usually make a habit of going home with strange men,” he murmured, reaching out to tuck a stray curl behind Newt’s ear, “but you really are very lovely.”

He leaned forward, gently brushing his lips against Newt’s, then as Newt leaned eagerly into the kiss, Percival seemed content to let Newt take the lead, parting his lips as Newt deepened the kiss, clutching at Percival’s coat.

When they parted, both men were breathless, lips wet and kiss-reddened. “You said you had a room somewhere nearby?” Percival asked, his breath ghosting over Newt’s lips.

The walk back to the hotel didn’t take very long. Newt spent the whole walk in a state of semi-arousal, the cold, crisp air doing nothing to dampen his desire. Neither, it seemed, did it dampen Percival’s ardor one bit, going by how he crowded Newt up against the door, suckling kisses up his jaw the moment they got the room door closed.

Newt managed to scrape together enough presence of mind to hurriedly remove his pet Bowtruckle, Pickett, from his shirt pocket and slip him into his case while Percival’s back was turned, before Percival, _sweet Merlin_ , went _to his knees_ in front of him, and then he stopped thinking entirely and gave himself over wholly to the other man’s ministrations.

 

***

 

The next morning, Newt thought he could be forgiven if he had a little trouble getting out of bed after the... _activities_ of the previous night. He squinted blearily as sunlight streamed through the window of his hotel room and groaned, pulling a pillow over his face. He paused, then moved the pillow a tiny bit, just enough for him to peek over at the other side of the bed. Percival was indeed gone, so Newt burrowed deeper into the blankets and indulged in a little bit more of a doze.

A high-pitched chirp from his bedside table made him blink awake and turn over sleepily. Dougal, Newt’s Demiguise, was perched on the edge of his table, happily petting one of the baby Occamies Newt was rearing. The baby Occamy was curled up in a nest of silky black fabric. It twined itself around in the fabric, tangling itself up further, and let out another happy chirp.

Newt squinted at the black fabric the Occamy had tangled itself in. It looked kind of familiar. He blinked, and reached over to pick it up, gently freeing the Occamy from the knot it had tied itself into. Apparently Percival had forgotten his tie when he’d let himself out. Newt wondered if he should track down Percival to return it – he wasn’t quite sure of the etiquette of the situation, although he did have to fight back a little thrill at the thought of seeing the other man again.

The baby Occamy let out a squeak of protest at being divested of its blanket, and _lunged_. Its tiny fangs caught in the tie Newt was holding, and there was a loud ripping sound.

“Oh, no,” groaned Newt, staring at the tie in dismay – or what was left of the tie, anyway. Well, so much for trying to return the garment. The baby Occamy had ripped the tie clean in half, so with a sigh of resignation, Newt gave half the tie back to the Occamy to play with, stared blankly at the other half for a moment, then left it on his bedside table.

A little later, as he was dressing to go out, he realized that his bowtie was missing. An intensive search of his hotel room turned up what had formerly been his bowtie, hanging over the side of a lamp and badly fraying at both ends. A sudden memory from the previous night assailed him, of Percival gracefully rising from where he’d been kneeling on the floor and kissing Newt, letting him taste himself on Percival’s tongue as talented hands undid his bowtie and carelessly flung it away, before starting on his shirt buttons...Newt paused, and forced his mind back to the present before he ended up having to go take a cold shower.

His thoughtful gaze fell on the scrap of black silk on his bedside table. With a small sigh, he picked it up and knotted it around his neck, disposing of his old bowtie in the bin under the bathroom sink.

 

***

 

In the afternoon, feeling pleasantly sore, Newt left his hotel and wandered quietly along the street, trying to find a travel agency so he could arrange to get to Arizona somehow. His Niffler, however, apparently had other plans, wriggling its way out of his case and wreaking havoc on some poor unsuspecting Muggle. Things went steadily downhill from there: he was arrested by an Auror called Tina Goldstein for not Obliviating the Muggle, and hauled into MACUSA, America’s equivalent of the Ministry of Magic back home.

He was so busy trying to explain to Tina that he had to leave _now_ to find his Niffler before it went and got itself into more trouble that when he was dragged into MACUSA’s “Major Investigations Department”, interrupting a meeting of Important-Looking People, he almost missed one of the Important-Looking People starting ever-so-slightly and giving him a strange look. He blinked. _Hey, that man looked just like –_ but before Newt had the time to finish that thought, he and Tina were summarily ejected from the room.

He ended up in the Wand Permit Office somewhere in the bowels of MACUSA, uncomfortably trying to wriggle his way out from the middle of an argument between Tina and a man who seemed to be her supervisor. He was seriously considering just turning tail and making a run for it when the sound of footsteps behind him made him look around.

Tina’s supervisor turned to face the new arrival and jumped nervously, snapping to attention. “Afternoon, Mr. Graves, sir!”

“Afternoon, Abernathy,” said the man absently, looking intently at Newt instead of Abernathy, and Newt did a double take, staring wide-eyed, because standing in front of him was the man he’d seen in the meeting upstairs – and if this wasn’t Percival, then it was a man who was the spitting image of him. He wondered if this man also had a mole low on his back, just above the curve of his – he stopped that thought in its tracks and fought back a blush.

“Mr. Graves, sir,” said Tina quickly, “this is Mr. Scamander. He has a crazy creature in that case and – ” she trailed off, puzzled, as she realized that her superior wasn’t even listening to her.

Mr. Graves, as Tina had called him, was staring straight at Newt, frowning slightly. Newt blinked at him doubtfully, and had just decided that this couldn’t _possibly_ be the man from last night – perhaps Percival had a twin? (no, no, stop thinking about two Percivals, that was a _very bad idea_ ) – when Mr. Graves’ eyes moved from Newt’s face to his bowtie. His mouth dropped open, sheer outrage written all over his face.

“Is that my TIE?!”

 

 

End.

 


End file.
